The present invention relates to systems and methods that are used to process and route electronic mail based service requests and inquiries within an automated telephone call response center.
Electronic mail routing and processing systems, and automated telephone call response systems and centers are well known. Electronic mail (email) has become a widely used vehicle for communicating among individuals inside and outside of large organizations. Unfortunately, however, email has not allowed consumers, for example, to communicate with a customer service center efficiently and effectively without extensive call center operator intervention. That is, unlike telephone calls that may be received by an automated telephone call service center and routed based on caller responses to automated prompts (e.g., xe2x80x9cpress 1 for sales, 2 for support, etc.), an email message must be manually reviewed, classified, and routed to an appropriate person for appropriate response. As such, although email represents a significant medium for communications, generally, it has not been widely used within call centers due to the labor intensive nature of the processing necessary for generating appropriate response. In a call center, for example, calls received thereby may be routed based on a variety of internal and external control factors. For example, an incoming call to a call center may be routed for live agent response depending on the location of the caller as detected by some form of automatic number identification (ANI) scheme, the destination telephone number as processed through a private branch exchange (PBX) (e.g., the dialed telephone number or dialed number identification string (DNIS)), the competency required for response as determined based on caller responses to automated prompts and entries within an agent skillset database, etc. By utilizing caller responses as xe2x80x9choningxe2x80x9d instructions, a call may be routed to a particular agent that is skilled to handle the call and to provide adequate call center response. Such routing is achieved through use of conventional voice response systems in conjunction with computer telephony integration (CTI) systems. Such CTI systems are used to provide call detail data to a live operator via a computer terminal upon the contemporaneous delivery of a telephone call from a caller to that operator and, in particular, to his telephone terminal device (e.g., a headset, etc.).
Unfortunately, once sent an email message is not associated with a caller who is contemporaneously online and ready to respond to automated voice prompts such as those that may be used to otherwise route a telephone call from a caller who is on the call (e.g., one who is on the line and ready to reach a live agent). Instead, an email received by a call center must be read, classified, and manually routed to an agent within an organization who can provide an adequate response. Currently, there exists no way for an email message to be automatically routed based on the nature and content of the message.
Thus, there exists a need to provide systems and methods that may be used to process and route electronic mail messages like telephone calls within an automated telephone call service center. To be viable, such systems and methods must enable call centers to accept electronic mail messages from those individuals and entities seeking call center services (e.g., technical support, product information, etc.) and to respond to such messages after automatically routing the same to ready and able personnel and other response systems.
The present invention solves the above-described problems associated with generating call center responses to requests and inquiries that originate via communications mediums such as electronic mail, etc. By automating response processes, call centers will be able to better utilize resources including personnel to provide call center responses to e-mail based inquires and requests. In particular, call centers may now respond to electronic mail message based service requests and inquiries without having to manually review and route such messages. In accordance with the present invention and, in particular, its automatic capabilities, electronic mail messages may be treated like or similar to telephone calls by a call center. At the same time, consumers of call center services (e.g., consumers of products and services for which call center support is provided, etc.) will benefit from the present invention by being able to simply create electronic mail based requests that may be sent to a call center address (e.g., a product information inquiry, technical service or support request, etc. in the form of an email message which is sent to an address like or similar to support@MCI.COM, etc.) to be handled automatically and in a timely manner.
To achieve the aforementioned benefits associated with the present invention, the present invention provides systems and methods for processing and routing electronic mail messages within a call center which include and involve an electronic mail server system for routing incoming and outgoing electronic mail messages and a mail parsing system coupled to the electronic mail server system. The mail parsing system is operative to receive an incoming electronic mail message from the electronic mail server system, to automatically parse the incoming electronic mail message for the existence of at least one pre-determined term related to a particular call center activity, and to route the incoming electronic mail message via the electronic mail server system to a corresponding storage area when the incoming electronic mail message contains at least one predetermined term.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for obtaining a service from a call center that includes the steps generating an electronic mail message containing a request for a service from a call center which is performed by an electronic mail message origination system, sending the electronic mail message from the electronic mail message origination system to the call center via an electronic data network which couples the electronic mail message origination system and the call center, automatically generating a reply upon receipt of the electronic mail message by the call center, automatically sending the reply to the electronic mail message origination system for routing thereby from the call center via the electronic data network, automatically parsing the electronic mail message for the existence of at least one term related to the service provided by said call center, and routing the electronic mail message to a storage area within said the center when the electronic mail message contains at least one term. The storage area is used to generate a response to the electronic mail message.
The method also includes a step of sending the response from the call center to the electronic mail origination system via the electronic data network.